This book provides an exhaustive survey of the most recent achievements in the theory and applications of finite fields and in many related areas such as algebraic number theory, theoretical computer science, coding theory and cryptography. Topics treated include polynomial factorization over finite fields, the finding and distribution of irreducible primitive and other special polynomials, constructing special bases of extensions of finite fields, curves and exponential sums, and linear recurrent sequences. Besides a general overview of the area, its results and methods, it suggests a number of interesting research problems of various levels of difficulty. The volume concludes with an impressive bibliographical section containing more than 2300 references. Audience: This work will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in field theory and polynomials, number theory, symbolic computation, symbolic/algebraic manipulation, and coding theory.